Getting ready for Ghostly Tales - Creative Writing Workshop

 

Ghostly Tales Creative Writing workshop

Today has been a good writing day, because, despite a broken tooth leaving my mouth a state utter carnage, I have spent the afternoon writing.

Not just any old writing, but drafting up notes for a workshop I am delivering on behalf of Gibraltar Cultural Services next week, and given its autumnal theme heralding the spooky season, I am thoroughly enjoying prepping.

I love autumn with all its flaming colours and cool bite to the breeze and the hints of purple on the horizon as winter closes in. And along with autumn, in a flurry of commercialism that throws environmental concerns to the winds of climate change, comes Halloween. Which, because I ignore all the 'stuff' lining the shop shelves, is also one of my favourite features of the season.

I've loved ghost stories since I was a child. I found them utterly terrifying and they induced many a nightmare because my imagination was riotous and uncontrollable, and I simply could not laugh off the concept of the dead returning to strike fear into the hearts of the living, or, maybe slightly worse, the undead emerging from the crypt to feast on the blood of innocent young women, and I happened to be one of those. But, my goodness, ghost stories, chilling tales of the unexplained, that tap into primal fears, are just so compelling.

My interest in ghost stories had bubbled under the surface for years. I used to like closing the curtains on a cold winter night, lighting the fire, and telling 'creepy' stories around halloween time, and my kids would clamour for these. And sometimes I would take them to old ruins, preferably one of those ruined abbeys with a smattering of ancient gravestones, where I'd make up the stories as we wondered about. They used to moan at being dragged around old ruins and now they do the same to their kids! They are all perfectly well-adjusted and successful adults, in case you were wondering, and they still love ghost stories, and these days, horror movies too. Perhaps that is because ghost stories aren't told so much to frighten the listener other than enough to warn them that the unknown can harbour danger, but to let us explore a range of deep emotions in a place of safety - by the fire, in our homes, between the covers of a book.

Safety between the covers of a book

Some years ago, I returned to giving more attention to ghost stories and other chilling and creepy tales. Other than entertaining the family with them at Halloween, I had overlooked them for years, following my grandmother's advice that we all have far more to fear from the living than from the dead. I focused instead on raising my family and keeping food on the table rather than on wondering whether there is an afterlife, and if there is, why some spirits chose to stay here...

But as the kids grew up and left home, my fascination returned, and I started a writing project which involved looking into what ghost stories in particular places can tell us about the history and culture of that place. Of course, that place was Gibraltar and, with it's rather turbulent history and its fair share of nasty happenings, there are some fascinating ghost stories told here, and better still, there are some even more fascinating ones that are waiting to be written. The lovely Lindsay Weston of the "Making Stitches" podcast (link below) was living in Gibraltar at the time and she interviewed me as part of her "Gibraltar Stories" podcast. I've put the link to this below too, in case you fancied listening in.

Making Stitches podcast

Gibraltar Stories: Ghost Stories with Jackie Anderson

As happens with many writing projects, this one has been sitting around for a while, with me adding to it in fits and starts as best I could around my day job and being distracted with other projects. But I have resurrected it recently and, rubbing the rust off my pen nib and  dipping this in ink, have started penning some words together. 

By sheer coincidence, Gibraltar Cultural Services contacted me and asked me to deliver the Ghostly Tales workshop and I've spent the past week wallowing in Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker, H P Lovecraft, M R James, Susan Hill, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King and others. And I'm loving it.

Joyfully immersing myself in some great ghost stories

So please do me a favour and book yourself in to the workshop. We're going to share our love for things fearful and work together to hopefully get the bones of a good ghost story going. We'll be at Bookgem on 1st November at 6pm. It'll be getting dark. We'll be touching on that most basic of human emotions, fear, and how to generate as much of it in your reader as possible. All good stuff for dark autumn nights.